Critically ill and seriously injured patients require constant care and attention. Doctors, nurses, and hospital technicians need a continuous flow of information about the many patients under their care. Heart rate and blood pressure measurements are two primary vital signs that indicate the health of patients under their care. When these two common indices of wellness fall below normal readings, a patient is usually in distress and requires immediate attention.
Dangerous conditions brought about by a cardiovascular or pulmonary disease, severe trauma, or drug abuse may bring about a failure of the lungs and heart to supply the bloodstream with life-giving oxygen. Such a fatal deficiency can be detected by continually gauging the amount of hemoglobin in the bloodstream that is carrying oxygen. This third vital sign, which manifests oxygen saturation of the blood, is especially critical because a rapid decline in oxygen in the bloodstream is associated with increased risk of patient mortality.
It is well known that blood pressure can be directly measured by placing a fluid-filled catheter directly into the vessel and coupling this to an electro-mechanical transducer. This is the most accurate means, but has all the disadvantages of invasive measurement, including pain on insertion, risk of infection or disease transmission, risk of bleeding or thrombosis, and great expense. A further disadvantage is the creation of toxic medical waste (needle, gloves, skin dressing, etc).
Blood pressure measurement can also be measured indirectly using an occlusive cuff (with either auscultation or oscillometry to make the determination). This is the most common means of blood pressure measurement. Illustrative are U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,582,179, 5,048,533, 5,152,296 and 4,793,360.
A further occlusive cuff apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,766,130. According to the invention, the apparatus includes multiple “pressurized pneumatic cuffs” that are used to “plot blood pressure and/or volumetric blood flow wave forms from a plurality of separate digits and/or extremities of a patient so that circulatory parameters may be measured rapidly and recorded from a great number of the patient's digits or limbs”.
Although commonly employed, the occlusive cuff also has numerous disadvantages, which include discomfort, intermittent readings, and poor reliability.
An additional means of determining blood pressure is through an assessment of “pulse wave velocity”. Several prior art references disclose methods and/or apparatus employing such means. Illustrative is U.S. Pat. No. 5,649,543.
There are also several prior art references that disclose methods and/or apparatus for determining blood pressure through a “pulse wave amplitude” assessment Illustrative are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,735,213, 4,872,461, 4,793,360, and 5,385,149.
Although most of the noted noninvasive blood pressure methods and apparatus, particularly the occlusive cuff, have been employed for many years by health care personnel, the conventional methods and apparatus have one major, common drawback—the need for separate calibration.
Accordingly, there is a need for noninvasive methods and devices for determining various physiological characteristics, such as central venous pressure and cardiac output, without separate calibration. There is also a similar need for noninvasive methods and devices for determining various blood parameters including pulse amplitude, pulse delay, pulse velocity, pulse contour, flow velocity and flow delay.
As will be appreciated by one having ordinary skill in the art, the present invention satisfies these and other needs.